Work Text:
Jiang Cheng remembers dying.
He dies alone, a letter missing from his otherwise clean desk, en route to Jin Ling’s office. He dies without any of his family by his side, two of whom are alive but are absent, one who is unavailable and the other… unqualified. He dies with his eyes gazed at ZiDian in regret, in utter disappointment in himself, as though he’s never had enough of that in his life. He doesn’t look at SanDu, totally missing from his room, hidden away from his sight.
He somehow finds his mind thinking of ZeWu-Jun. An unattainable, immortal-like human. A distant man from him even as his kindness extends so far out.
But Jiang Cheng knows to differentiate between a stranger and a friend. And Jiang Cheng knows where he fits in ZeWu-Jun’s mind.
Don’t get him wrong, he has long but given up on ZeWu-Jun. That doesn’t mean he will let him go. He’ll hold on, if he wants to.
No, he needs to. Who else could he love? In this world where no one is worthy of his love, not anymore. YunMeng and Lotus Pier has all his love, true, but it isn’t one he’d give to be intimate with. It’s one he expects whole trust in doing business, in maintaining the order of things. But who will he love to settle in his turbulent heart?
Answer? Jin Ling, ZeWu-Jun.
What about him?
No, he isn’t viable.
He has long but abandoned Jiang Cheng. Why should he care?
But he does, oh Gods, he does love him, doesn’t he?
Even after years, decades, of hating the other… He has yet to fully let go of the image of an innocent boy clinging to the purple robes of his father, a traumatised expression on his thin face, haggard from the harsh environments of living out in the streets.
Jiang Cheng knows how to love. He knows how to perceive it, he knows when to accept it, he knows when to let go. But that doesn’t mean he will.
So, he prays. That in his next life, he somehow has no reason to love, has no reason to accept love, to feel.
He closes his eyes, fully expecting the darkness to take him away, make him forget, he begs.
But he never expects to open his eyes to an infinite void of white, looking into a face so similar to his. This is ‘Jiang Cheng’.
And therefore, he is not ‘Jiang Cheng’.
Because he cannot be Jiang Cheng.
xox o xox
Jiang Cheng remembers being stabbed, betrayed—
No, he wasn’t betrayed. He never had their trust to begin with. It’s all his fault to trust. Feelings are a detriment, a form of self-torture to oneself that ebbs away at someone’s mind, culminating in the corner of one’s heart before it consumes them whole.
That’s what happened to Jiang Cheng.
He admits; he doesn’t really deserve a merciful death, nor a moral one at that. After all, in his life, he has done more than countless crimes that puts him in death sentence for the three, going to four, decades he has lived. Far too young for a cultivator, sure. But he is no cultivator.
Somehow, Jiang Cheng manages to stop the laugh that bubbles in his throat as he stares down from his high position at the edge of the cliff, a steep, painful and definitely assured death awaiting behind him.
He stares at the men, some women, who have come to bring him to his end.
There is… Wei WuXian and his husband, who is leading the charge while shielding the other from view. Jiang Cheng frowns at this because of course, shouldn’t family get the first seat of his death? Nevermind, he’ll ensure it. Then, his eyes flit to the right, where he sees his nephew. Pah, not his nephew anymore. He took up the name ‘Jin’, no longer wanting to associate with the name’ Jiang’ now that his uncle has been deemed a madman, a murderer, a crazed psychopath… among other things.
And right in the middle, ZeWu-Jun. Surprising, really, it is. Jiang Cheng never thought his death could include someone of such high virtue such as ZeWu-Jun. Who would want to taint their precious flower, of course. Certainly not Jiang Cheng. Even if his life was bathed in blood, in sins, stained by the countless weight of money, shackled by the mournful wails of the dead.
He can appreciate beauty. Of course, he can. Those eyes which has seen all kinds of hell would be able to see beauty when they do. And Jiang Cheng sees.
ZeWu-Jun is beauty.
Not in his looks; his whole heart, soul, existence. A beautiful thing, only to be tainted by his death.
Jiang Cheng can’t help but sigh pitifully at this.
So, he drops the twin daggers in his hands and move towards ZeWu-Jun who is stiff as a plank, shoulders tensed and poised to react to his every move.
But Jiang Cheng doesn’t care. He’s been ready to die since he lost his core all those years back. What does this matter now?
Jiang Cheng lifts his hands and covers ZeWu-Jun’s eyes just as he slips his body, perfectly pinpoint to his heat, onto ShuoYue. He feels ZeWu-Jun’s hand tremble, making the stab shakily deepen before ZeWu-Jun freezes in his motion. Jiang Cheng hushes him, of course the man would be scared. Such a delicate flower, this one.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t take his hands off the others eyes before impaling himself fully on ShuoYue, the clean, pristine blade stained with the red blood—he chuckles breathlessly that it somehow is still red like everyone else’s—entering through his abdomen, straight through his heart and out through his left shoulder. A beautiful wound to add to add to Jiang Cheng’s collection of scars.
Jiang Cheng finally lets go off ZeWu-Jun’s eyes and finally leaves the world, with an implant of those beautiful golden orbs permanent in his memory.
Only to open his eyes and stare down at the same grey eyes that he has on his own face.
This man, is ‘Jiang Cheng’.
So, he isn’t ‘Jiang Cheng’.
But he is Jiang Cheng.
xox o xox
The two Jiang Chengs stare at each other, unable to make heads or tails of the situation. Jiang Cheng smiles, that malicious smile that has haunted most people’s memories from his previous life.
“Nice to meet you, I am Jiang Cheng,” he says.
The other nods cautiously back.
“My name is Jiang Cheng. Nice to meet you too,” he says hushedly.
“Did you die too?” Jiang Cheng asks the other.
The other nods.
“Peaceful?” Another nod.
“Not much of a talker, are you?”
“I just…” he fumbles. “I can’t really wrap my head around this situation right now.”
“Ah, quite understandable. I, myself, cannot begin to comprehend what is happening.”
They sit in silence for awhile, not knowing what else to do when they hear a voice. The turn to look, where there was empty space, now a door stands, tall and imposing.
In front of it, there lies a pair of daggers, not unlike those that Jiang Cheng has wielded before.
“Are they asking us to kill ourselves?” Jiang Cheng asks hesitantly.
“Who knows,” the other says almost bored. “But I think dying once is enough for both of us, no?”
Jiang Cheng nods in agreement.
The door opens and they step through it.
The next time they open their eyes, they are not ‘Jiang Cheng’s. They have become ‘Jiang Cheng’.
They have been reincarnated in their younger self of aged 16, when they were first sent to the Cloud Recesses for studying.
Before both their lives turned into an absolute shithole. And so, they become a ‘he’. And ‘he’ starts living again.